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BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Black
Duck Software, the trusted partner for open source software (OSS)
adoption, management, and governance, and North
Bridge Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm, today
announced the results of the eighth annual Future of Open Source Survey,
an annual investigation into OSS industry trends. This year’s results
point toward the increased strategic role that OSS has in today’s
enterprises, the crucial function OSS plays in developing new
technologies, the growth of first-time developers within the OSS
community, and the impact it has on daily life.

“This year’s results signal an important shift in how enterprises view
open source – a shift that will have tremendous impact on the future of
development,” said Lou Shipley, President and CEO, Black Duck. “Open
source has proven its quality and security, and reached a point of
widespread democratization and proliferation. As such, organizations
must – and, as our survey shows, some of the more sophisticated OSS
users have already begun – changing the way they view their role.
Understanding that it’s about more than just cost-cutting or any of the
traditional reasons to simply use OSS; it’s about participating and
managing the logistical challenges to gain competitive advantage,
attract top talent, and influence project direction.”

Survey results highlight this democratization and proliferation of open
source in three main areas: new people, new technologies, and new
economics.

New PeopleSurvey results uncover the growth of first-time
developers participating in the open source community, and point to both
new open source education initiatives and the prevalence of open
source-based educational platforms. In addition, the survey reveals the
three industries expected to be impacted most by OSS are education (76
percent), government (67 percent), and health care (45 percent). Results
also demonstrate how embedded OSS has become in our social fabric.
Respondents reported the top ten areas OSS will impact our everyday
lives include:

New TechnologiesOpen source has long been touted as the
foundation for new technological innovations, and as OSS projects grow,
so, too, do these new technologies. As data from the Black
Duck® KnowledgeBase™ shows, with nearly one million open
source projects to date, the rate of innovation spurs new technologies
such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and the continued rise of Software
as a Service (SaaS). When asked what industries OSS technology was
leading, 63 percent cited cloud computing/virtualization as the key area
where developers have turned to OSS. In addition, 57 percent answered
content management, 52 percent selected mobile technology, and 51
percent answered security.

New Economics56 percent of corporations expect to
contribute to more open source projects in 2014, signaling a change in
the way enterprises view open source. When asked why they engaged with
OSS communities, cost reduction was still the top response (61 percent),
but 45 percent of corporations responded that they also did so to gain
competitive advantage. For companies with over 1,000 employees,
influencing a project’s direction was the third most popular answer.
Finding and recruiting talent fell from the number two reason to engage
with communities in 2013 to the number five answer this year, with only
37 percent choosing that as the top reason. This may be the result of
OSS experience becoming a price-of-entry rather than a distinguishing
factor.

“Open source is enjoying a proliferation that starts with a growing
number of new developers at the grass roots. Many then go on to
join enterprises who themselves are engaging in open source projects.
Further news in the survey shows enterprises now organizing to
contribute back more actively; as they realize the importance of open
source innovation to jumpstart careers and kickstart projects,” said
Michael Skok, general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners. “As our
survey continues to show open source is consuming the software world as
the inherent quality, functionality, and increasingly ease of deployment
creates a powerful gravitational pull on people and industries. This
self-reinforcing, virtuous cycle will result in the most exciting
applications having an open source foundation, which is why many of the
leading technology areas such as cloud, big data, content management and
mobile are treating open source as their 'foundational
platform.’ Further, more new areas like the Internet of Things, which
requires interoperability and extensibility, can only be met by open
source initiatives, hence the emergence of new communities such as the
AllSeen Alliance."

Additional Findings

72 percent of respondents chose to use OSS because it provides
stronger security than proprietary solutions, signaling a growing
awareness that the proper management and use of OSS actually provides
an even more secure environment than proprietary solutions. Building
upon this, 80 percent of respondents reported choosing open source
because of its quality over proprietary alternatives.

68 percent of respondents said that OSS helped improve efficiency and
lower costs, and 55 percent also indicated that OSS helped create new
products and services, further supporting the idea of OSS as both an
entrenched and a strategic element of today’s enterprises.

50 percent of enterprises report openly contributing to and adopting
open source, signaling a shift in the way organizations view the value
of and their role in making contributions to the community.

A record-breaking 1,240 industry influencers took this year’s survey,
answering questions about OSS trends, opportunities, key drivers of open
source adoption, community engagement, and the business problems OSS
solves now and in the future.

About North Bridge Venture PartnersEstablished in 1994,
North Bridge is an active partner for early-stage entrepreneurs,
providing seed-to-growth financing for innovative companies looking to
disrupt big markets. North Bridge partners, many founders themselves,
work with entrepreneurs to apply their expertise in the creation,
operation and scaling of market-leaders. The firm has offices in Boston,
Massachusetts and Palo Alto, California. To learn more about North
Bridge, go to www.northbridge.com
and follow us at @north_bridge.
For more information on the Future of Open Source program, visit http://mjskok.com/resources/open-source.

About Black Duck SoftwareBlack
Duck is the partner of choice for open source software adoption,
governance and management. Enterprises of every size depend on Black
Duck to harness the power of open source technologies and methods. As
part of the greater OSS community, Black Duck connects developers to
comprehensive OSS resources through Ohloh.net,
and to the latest commentary from industry experts through the Open
Source Delivers blog. Black Duck also hosts the Open
Source Think Tank, an international event where thought leaders
collaborate on the future of open source. Black Duck is headquartered
near Boston and has offices in San Mateo, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Hong
Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing. For more information about how to
leverage open source to deliver faster innovation, greater creativity
and improved efficiency, visit www.blackducksoftware.com
and follow us at @black_duck_sw.